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Summoning

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For many centuries now, the druids of Taverley and some of the ogre shamans of Gu'Tanoth have been bringing various familiars from other realms to help them with a variety of their tasks. Of course, the druids being peaceful and the ogres being more 'business-like', they traditionally summon entirely different familiars - what would a druid want with a rune minotaur, for example? What would an ogre do with a unicorn stallion?

Having realised how useful this skill is to the adventurers of Gielinor, they have released the secret of their powers, and now you can enjoy the curious advantages that come with learning the art of Summoning.

Summoning works by 'infusing' the essence of a creature from a strange realm into a type of pouch. When the summoning pouch is opened, a portal is briefly activated to pull the familiar through to the world of Gielinor, where it is bound to serve its master for a period of time before the portal closes and it is pulled back.

Summoning is a three-stage skill. That is, there are three distinct aspects to Summoning and using familiars. These stages are as follows:

Infusing pouches

Using special ingredients and the charged Summoning obelisks, you can create Summoning pouches which contain a familiar's essence.

Summoning familiars

Opening the pouch summons the familiar to follow you about and help you as you travel across Gielinor.

Using Summoning scrolls

Pouches can be 'transformed' into Summoning scrolls. All familiars have a special ability that can only be used if you have the correct scrolls.

Infusing Pouches

All summoners need pouches to summon their familiars. Through the power of the obelisks, they are able to bind the essence of a creature into the pouch to be released later. In addition, they can use these pouches to create scrolls to empower their creatures to use special abilities.

Obelisk interface

To infuse any pouch, you need an empty pouch and a few ingredients. By taking these to a fully-charged Summoning obelisk, you will be able to infuse the pouch so that you can summon your familiar. To find out where a suitable obelisk is, read below.

When you find an obelisk, you can simply click on it to bring up the options for infusing a pouch. Depending on the ingredients you have to hand, it should look something like this:

You can remind yourself of the ingredients you need by selecting a pouch in the interface. Like many other skills, you have options for infusing many pouches at once.

Infusing Scrolls

Pouches can be transformed into scrolls at a fully-charged Summoning obelisk. Each pouch will make 10 scrolls. As scrolls are used, your special move bar will be drained, but it will recharge with time.

Obelisk interface for scrolls

When you find an obelisk, you can simply click on it to bring up the options for transforming a pouch. Depending on the ingredients you have to hand, it should look something like this:

Summoning Familiars

To summon a familiar for which you have a pouch, simply right-click on the pouch and select 'Summon'. You will see your familiar appear next to you. Note that you can only have one follower (either a pet or a familiar) out at any one time; there are also a very small number of areas that will not allow you to summon a familiar, usually only if you are standing very near a fully-charged obelisk.

When you summon a familiar, you will notice that your Summoning level begins to fall. Like Prayer, Summoning a familiar will drain your Summoning points, which can only be regained by visiting a Summoning obelisk or drinking a Summoning potion. You can see how many points you have remaining by looking at the Action Bar.

Because Summoning familiars costs you Summoning points, you will often find that you need to recharge. You can do this by heading to any Summoning obelisk, right-clicking on it and selecting 'Renew-Points', or by drinking a Summoning potion. Summoning potions also restore a portion of your special move bar.

The length of time a familiar will remain with you depends on the familiar you have summoned. All familiars will stay with you for a set period of time. There is an initial Summoning points cost to summon a familiar, though, so you must have enough Summoning points to support this. It's easy to top-up your points, though: just have a look for a small obelisk.

When you have your familiar out, you'll discover that many of them have a number of special abilities that you can use to your advantage. If you're unsure what your familiar can do, please read Familiars. If you're looking for a familiar to help with a specific aspect of your training, this article also shows each type of familiar according to its best skill.

All familiars have a 'special move' that can be activated by using a Summoning scroll. There are many different special moves, to see what your familiar does, please read Summoning Scrolls.

Using special moves will use up some of your special move energy, which you can see at the top of the Summoning interface. Like special attack energy, this recharges over time. To see how much of your special move energy is used by each scroll, please see the Summoning - Scrolls article.

Note that although many special moves will activate when you click the special move button, some special moves will require you to specify a target (the Bull Rush special moves, for instance).

Familiars and Combat

Many familiars are capable of helping you out in combat by attacking your opponents. Their attacks range from mild irritants, through to assaults capable of delivering massive damage or seriously reducing your enemy's statistics. Each combat familiar has a specific type of combat that they specialise in, and you will earn experience in that skill (as well as Constitution) as if you had inflicted the damage yourself. Familiars will also help with Slayer assignments and LootShare.

If you find yourself facing someone else who has a familiar (in The Duel Arena, for instance), you will find it useful to know that familiars' attacks are occasionally unlike the usual Melee, Ranged or Magic that you might expect. Most armour has a specific defence value against familiars' special moves and some of their stranger attacks, and if your Prayer level is high enough you may be able to use the Protect from Summoning prayer to minimise the damage you will receive from their attacks.

Pets

The Summoning skill, aside from granting you the ability to call upon strange beings from another realm, also enables you to form close bonds with a number of animals native to Gielinor. These range from dogs and geckos right up to baby dragons!

Pets can be purchased from pet shops, caught using the Hunter skill, received from birds' nests when Woodcutting, or as drops from some monsters.

When you have your pet out and following you, you will be able to right-click the Summoning icon next to the minimap and select 'Follower details' to see how your pet is getting along.

Like the interface for keeping track of your familiars, there are a couple of useful bits of information available.

The 'feeding dish' icon shows your pet's hunger. The higher the number, the more they need to eat. If you don't feed your pet regularly enough, they are likely to run away, so remember to keep some snacks on you! You can find out what your pet likes to eat from the article on pets.

The other icon, showing an adult bulldog and a bulldog puppy, shows how far your pet is towards being fully grown. Most pets go from being puppies/chicks/etc. to an adult state, but the Guthix raptor, Saradomin owl and Zamorak hawk all have an intermediate stage.

Locations

Charged Summoning Obelisks

Summoning obelisks are essential tools for the budding summoner. You can use them to infuse pouches, transform pouches into scrolls and to recharge your summoning points. A number of obelisks have been discovered across Gielinor, so if you're running low on pouches, scrolls or summoning points, you can head to one of these locations.

Small Obelisks

In addition to the charged obelisks at which you can infuse pouches, there are dozens of partially charged, 'small' obelisks all over RuneScape that you can use to recharge your Summoning points. The list below is just a sample: you can find lots more by exploring!

Pet Shops and Incubators

Summoners may find that they want a pet that they do not need to summon, and can instead carry about, have following them or store in their bank. Pet shops are convenient places for summoners to find these pets and the resources to look after them. They also have incubators, which are necessary if you want to get an egg ready to hatch.

Getting Summoning Experience

XP is provided for infusing summoning pouches and, to a lesser extent, transforming pouches to scrolls, summoning familiars and using summoning scrolls.

Boosting Experience Gain

The small, medium, large and huge fallen stars can boost your XP gain depending on your level. To activate your bonus XP, you must click the star. Once the bonus XP has been added to your bonus XP pool, the star is removed from your inventory.

Each individual item in the shaman's set (hand wraps, headdress, leggings, moccasins, and poncho) grant 1% extra XP each. A complete set will grant an additional 1% XP bringing the total to 6% for the whole set.

Players in a clan with a citadel will find that contributing to their clan's resource pool will earn bonus XP that can be used on the surface world.

Training Hints and Tips

Keep your Summoning points up! If your points run out, you'll be unable to summon your familiars, so if you plan on spending a fair bit of time with your familiar, you should head to an obelisk first to recharge, as well as grabbing some Summoning potions.

Skill-based familiars (like the Macaw) can help out with a few skills at once, so you can be working on your Herblore, for example, while getting Summoning experience.

Keep an eye on your familiar's timer! They might just disappear right when you need them the most...

Consider unlocking the Spiritualise Food spell for your Lunar Spellbook. This spell allows you to heal your familiar with food, as well as boost its combat stats and regenerate its timer.

Useful Items

Spirit gems are worn in the pocket slot and have a chance to save you using a charm when crafting pouches.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Why is my Summoning level lower than it should be?

Your Summoning skill is like your Prayer skill, in that performing certain actions reduces your Summoning points. Your Summoning points are reduced by Summoning a familiar or using their right-click abilities.

You can recharge your Summoning points by going to an obelisk or drinking a Summoning potion.

2. Do I get combat experience for damage my familiar does in combat?

Yes - every familiar that can fight will award combat experience in a specific combat skill as well as Constitution as if you had inflicted the damage yourself. To find out which familiars give specific combat experience, read Familiars.

3. My familiar isn't attacking my enemy!

You can make your familiar attack your foe by clicking the 'Call familiar' button in your Summoning interface.

4. Aren't some of those familiars awfully powerful?

Some of the high-level familiars are potent beasts capable of wreaking havoc among weaker creatures. As such, they can be dangerous opponents - remember, though, that familiars do not get the benefit of Prayers or special armour/weapons that you do.

If you're finding familiars make your duelling challenging, you might like to look into the Protect from Summoning prayer, which will block any familiar's right-click abilities and 40% protection from their special moves. This prayer can be combined with other protection prayers to keep you safe from their normal attacks.

5. Do I need a Summoning level to wear some helmets now?

No, you only need a Summoning level to have helmets enchanted to carry Summoning scrolls. If you don't want your helmet enchanted, you don't need a Summoning level.

6. Why can't I charge my headgear with my scrolls?

If you have enchanted Summoning headgear, you can store combat-based Summoning scrolls in them. You can only have one item of headgear with scrolls stored in it at a time.

7. Why can't I summon a familiar in some places?

You cannot summon a familiar close to a fully-charged Summoning obelisk because the Summoning energies are too great there, and you risk having a familiar running loose. You can still bring a familiar to a fully-charged obelisk, but you will be unable to summon one there. There are also a small number of minigames that may not allow you to use familiars.

8. Where can I get Summoning charms?

There are hundreds of creatures around Gielinor that have charms, so it should be a simple matter of running to a good combat area and killing some monsters to get charms for your Summoning skills.

To get you started, here's a list of some creatures with a decent drop-rate for Summoning charms:

These creatures may not necessarily drop the most charms or even drop them most frequently, so by exploring and trying out different enemies, you may well find a better source.

Finally, you can also claim charms as a reward for taking part in Soul Wars.

9. There was a bug and now I've lost my pet!

Never fear, pets have a natural tendency to head for places with the resources to care for them. If your pet is lost because of a bug, you can simply head to a pet shop to recover it. Of course, this is a naturally difficult time for them, so all pets will be fully grown when you recover them, and it's possible that the shop owner mistakes one animal for another, so your pet may change colour.

You will not be able to recover a pet if you have dismissed it or you lost it when you died.

10. How do I get a carved turnip for an evil turnip pouch?

First of all, you'll need an evil turnip (the wicked vegetable that doesn't follow you about), which you can get by Farming or trading with other players. Next, you'll need to use a knife on it to turn it into that most horrific of all vegetables: the carved turnip.

11. How can I buy many spirit shards in one go?

You will often want to use hundreds of spirit shards at a time, for training or simply stocking up. To satisfy this demand, all Summoning shops offer spirit shard packs, containing 5,000 spirit shards.

12. Will Summoning affect my combat level?

Yes, Summoning will have an effect on your combat level but only if it is your highest combat skill (out of Attack, Strength, Magic, Summoning and Ranged). See Combat for a description of combat levels.

See Also

Summoning Related Skills

The following skills help with the Summoning skill:

Hunter - If you'd like to get hold of charms without engaging in combat, then you might be interested in hunting charm sprites. These little critters can be found south of the Tree Gnome Stronghold, on the way to the Arandar Pass. Hunters of at least level 72 will be able to buy the necessary tools from the gnome hunter Yaktwee Swinmari Cianta, then use them to blast critters and transmute them into charms.